Listened to Shostakovich's 7th symphony tonight for the first time in a couple months. That might be my favorite of his symphonies. The fourth movement is fantastic. The music itself is great, but the way he ties the piece's narrative together is nothing short of genius. I got full on goosebumps listening to a piece for the first time in a while.

Just finishing up a reasonably close listen to Mahler's Resurrection Symphony. I really enjoy some parts but I'm quite dubious on the whole. I don't really know how to express it—it just didn't connect. It seemed even to lack substance, like it was all veneer.

Arg! It's my favourite of his and quite possibly my favourite symphony by anyone. Did you read the text at the same time? He is trying to express something very precise here, that could help.Maybe you thought it was veneer is because it seems to be going in all directions, between movements (a tense first one, two lighter ones, a more solemn even bleak one and a very loud finale (i dare you to not get blown away by the ending chorus)), and even in the way it is written, with lots of different intruments playing at different times, not often playing as a whole, which could make it seem less structured, more jumbled and cluttered than say a Beethoven symphony, but that's Mahler's style, so he may seem vulgar and superficial at times but imo it's because he wrote it for EVERYONE. There's something very accessible in Mahler's symphonies (more so than in Brahms' or Beethoven's) which I find very refreshing and don't make the deeper moments sound less deep. You have to try to listen to the thing as a whole (I have trouble with those lighter movements 2 and 3 but the more I iisten to them the more I like them and the the broader view I have of the symphony, so certain parts always appeal to certain people at first but that is not a reason to disdain the whole thing).

*edit: one possibl problem is that he is expressing similar things (to?) Bach, but in a very different (less refined perhaps) style, so it needs getting used to.

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